NORTH YORKSHIRE COUNCIL

15 MAY 2024

STATEMENT OF THE CHAIR OF CARE AND INDEPENDENCE AND HOUSING  OVERVIEW AND SCRUTINY COMMITTEE

The Care and Independence and Housing Overview and Scrutiny Committee scrutinises the needs of vulnerable adults, older people and people whose independence needs to be supported by intervention from the public or voluntary sector and housing.

Committee Meeting on 28 March 2024

The Committee last met on 28 March 2024, in person in The Grand at County Hallall.H. At that meeting, Members received detailed presentations on:

· Annual Report of the Director of Public Health

· The Local Account

· Summary of the Annual Report of the Adults Safeguarding Board

· Annual Report of the Older People's Champion

· Dementia Care

· Domestic Abuse Policy

There were no public questions or statements.

Outlined below are further details in relation to some of the areas that the committee has been looking at.

Annual Report of the Director of Public Health

The Committee received an update from Louise Wallace, Director of Public Health.

This report was entitled “A Childs Life in North Yorkshire” and provides an opportunity to highlight key issues and opportunities and share recommendations for action.

The report covers

· Early years

· Primary

· Secondary

· Late adolescence and early adulthood

The Committee then discussed in some detail the issues and noted that dentistry remains an ongoing concern across the County. It was also noted that vaping was on the increase and becoming a large concern.as was obesity in children.

The Local Account

An Update from Louise Wallace, Director of Public Health.

The purpose of this report was to introduce the draft Health and Adult Services Local Account.

The Local Account is an annual statement of HAS performance in delivering adult social care. The time period covered for this Local Account is 1st April 2022 - 31st March 2023.

This covered;

· Who we are and what we do

· What we did in 2022/23

· How did we do

· How much did we spend

· What are we doing in 2023/24

A discussion then followed around the recruitment and retention of care workers, and how we could alternatively refer to the over 65 age group, with age described as biological not chronological.

Annual Report of the Older People’s Champion

Councillor Dickinson gave an overview of her Annual Report This role is all about raising the profile and the 'voice' of older people so that the issues that matter to them in their communities become and remain a priority on the agendas of local decision makers.

We are still living with the impact of Covid19, and with how its dampened older people’s enthusiasm to engage in a way that seemed so natural previously. We also know, as our Director of Public Health rightly continues to emphasise, that the virus is still out there, and we must now continue to learn to live with it.

A key priority still remains “how can we help make older people's representative groups more self-sufficient, more active and more independent ?.” The role is about helping to empower older people so that they can live their lives independently with full trust in those around them.

Dementia Care

This presentation was an update on the provision and strategy development and covered the following areas;

This covered the following points;

• Dementia in North Yorkshire
• Diagnosing well in North Yorkshire
• Dementia Support & Advice Service Data
• Dementia Care in the Community
• Care Market Capacity
• Dementia Care in Residential and Nursing Settings
• Programme of Work to Upskill / Build Capacity
• Dementia Strategy
• Strategic working with the ICBs

There then followed a discussion which included reasons why we are now diagnosing people early due to a number of factors including the fact that public awareness has hugely increased, people are not as scared to come forward and GP culture has improved.

Domestic Abuse Policy

A presentation from housing colleagues presenting the aims and scope of the new policy, these included;

• To comply with new legislation - Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023
• Adopting best practice following Domestic Abuse Act 2021
• Ensuring all residents/tenants experiencing domestic abuse receive an effective, consistent, and supportive housing response
• Enabling people affected by domestic abuse to access specialist support and reduce further harm
• Providing guidance for all staff in the Housing Service
• Applies to residents within the North Yorkshire area, North Yorkshire Council tenants and leaseholders, and North Yorkshire Council members
• Staff members affected by domestic abuse are not covered by this policy
• Background on the policy development

Committee Workplan

Having discussed challenges facing adult healthcare across the County generally, and in particular the areas the Committee felt would be a priority in terms of Scrutiny over the next 18-24 months, the workplan has been updated to reflect this. The Committee is keen to work collaboratively and will therefore continue to link in with the Council’s Area Constituency Committees (ACC’s) to ensure focus is maintained at a local level and also the Scrutiny Board to facilitate a County wide perspective. The Committee will also continue to work closely with the Scrutiny of Health Committee allowing continued joint working around adult social care.

The next meeting of the committee will be at 10am on 19 June 2024.

COUNCILLOR KARIN SEDGWICK